‘Figures of Eight’ a live performance process and moving performance made collaboratively with Fatima Groups United interrogating the current state of Dublin 8 in terms of accommodation, gentrification and biodiversity, produced by Project Arts Centre and funded through the Arts Council’s Artist in the Community Project Realisation Award managed by CREATE.

Photographs by Jacek Snochowski Fruit Frame.

PROJECT PHASES

1. Weekly Workshop Exploratory Sessions with members of Fatima Groups United and artist Veronica Dyas. From January to June 2023, Fatima Groups United worked with artist Veronica Dyas on a weekly basis to devise material for a new project, ‘Figures of Eight’. This site-specific work builds on a number of collaborative projects and initiatives with Project Arts Centre and Fatima Groups United (FGU) that explore the local area and its rich cultural history. 

2. Walking and Talking in the D8
   In April 2023, Veronica began to incorporate her practice of walking within this process. She went walking with over twenty-five individuals (so far) who are from/live in/work in/hang out in the Dublin 8 area as part of her research, to gain a deeper understanding beyond her own lived experiences as a working class artist from the area. Veronica is continuing this process of walking and talking in the D8.

3. Community Screening and Conversation
   The thematic concerns of Figures of Eight are gentrification, loss of space and place within communities fuelled by the Housing Crisis, lack of green spaces and the ever increasing encroachment of apart-hotels and student accommodation in Dublin 8 and the wider city. As part of this residency, on June 1st 2023, Dublin 8 residents attended the F2 Centre in Fatima to watch the community screening of ‘The Pruitt-Igoe Myth’ (2011) a documentary film directed by Chad Freidrichs detailing the history of the Pruitt–Igoe public housing complex in St. Louis, Missouri, and the eventual decision to raze the entire complex in 1976.
   Following the screening a ‘town hall’ discussion around public housing, regeneration and gentrification was facilitated by Clare O’Connor.

4. CUBE Residency

   Part of Project Arts Centre’s collaboration with Fatima Groups United on this process, was to provide a Studio Week in Project Cube. In June 2023, this phase of the project was realised when the community worked towards their performance through a week-long residency in the CUBE. This marked the community’s first residency off-site and marks a significant step in their development as artistic collaborators.

5. ‘Figures of Eight – A Moving Performance’

   In 2023, the people had enough of the ever increasing encroachment of apart-hotels and student accommodation in their neighbourhood of Dublin 8. The already limited green spaces available for biodiversity and, just breathing, was being overshadowed by these towering constructions. They were all around us, rising up over us all, and still the people couldn't find anywhere decent and affordable to live.

   We took to the streets, again, trying to find new ways to express our dismay. Travelling our area by luas, by foot, this is a performative protest by citizens who know that it doesn't have to be this way.

   There's another way to live.

   Will you follow us?

   We're raising our voices, saying our things, again.

   Can you hear us, 

   Is anybody listening?

   On Friday 16th June 2023, eight people from the group performed in a moving performance for an invited audience, and the general public. It began at the F2 Centre where FGU is based, travelled from Fatima Luas Stop to Drimnagh Luas Stop, performed there, returning via Rialto Luas Stop, along the filled in canal and back to the Green Space in front of the F2.